Just trying to keep up

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. This is a hectic month for me. Both of my kids' birthdays are this week and I got one out of the way on Monday when my oldest turned 19. My other is going to be 8 on Sunday and is having a sleepover party on Friday night.

Next, if you were here for my previous post last week about our weekend camping trip to central/southern Indiana for the county wide Covered Bridge Festival in Parke County, then you know I was literally OCD focused on getting some persimmon cookies AND the Amish girl's recipe for them. I was even willing to pay her $10 for the recipe. And, if I was luckier to maybe even buy some persimmon pulp, if they had any they were willing to sell. I mean, if you have it to make the cookies, surely you have some on hand, right? There was also the "discussion" me and my hubby were having about where this place was located. Well, in that post, we were both "technically" wrong, but in a round about way, I was right. The funny part was that we had been to a couple of flea markets on Sat. morning and were making our way to the town of Rockville when I noticed "THE" sign that said Garage Sale 3.5 miles. I just knew it was it, I recognized the road. My husband was being very adamant that I was wrong and he knew he was wasting his time and gas to go check this out. He swore it was off of a different road than the one we were on. I just kept my trap shut, especially since the first part of the road that we turned on didn't look familiar. Then, it started looking familiar, really familiar. Here's a funny thing. You see, my hubby and I have this thing that we do where we make bets when there are arguments debates between who is right about any given subject. These "bets" are for dinner to the winner. Although it's funny even when my husband wins because he's usually the one stuck with the bill anyway, since I don't work for $$. It's more or less just a way of getting to eat somewhere that you normally wouldn't for the sake of the wager and for fun.

Anywho... my point being is that I was so debating about making a wager for dinner on whether or not this garage sale was THE sale I was looking for. I should have SO bet!! YES!!! It was the place alright! I don't normally tell my hubby "I told ya so", but I just could not resist and in his own way, he's trying to hold back the smirky grin that he couldn't accomplish. Oh yeah! I was doing the biggest happy dance in the van that one can do while confined in a seat belt of a vehicle. They had persimmon cookies, there was even persimmon bread that looked so good. So I'm patiently waiting for the sweet little Amish girl to get done talking with her current customers so I can practically pounce on her to give me the cookies so no one gets hurt. But I kept my composure and paced frantically while waiting. So I get my cookies, which she informs me that they're still warm from the oven....are you kidding me? You can't get any better than that baby! So then I ask her for the recipe. Not only does she have the recipe, she has a whole book of Amish recipes. Yep! It included the persimmon bread too! I thought I'd died and went to persimmon heaven. But wait....if you want to make persimmon cookies and persimmon bread, don't you need persimmon pulp? Well, ya kinda do. So I ask if they have persimmon pulp for sale. By golly they did!! Half the price of what I paid for it last year for the same amount! OK, now I've died and gone to Heaven! Trying to refrain from losing all my senses and telling her I'll take all she's got, I just got one baggie of cookies, the recipe book and 2 quart bags of pulp. I really wanted to try the bread too, but I might just make that myself. We could have gone home after that & I would have been happy and felt the trip was complete. LOL! OK, well maybe not. Now I just need a persimmon tree! Hmmm...That could take a while.

So here is what the cookies look like, sorry I was only able to refrain from eating the last 2 before I could let them sit long enough to take a photo. They may not be Pinterest worthy, but they're tastebud worthy and that's all I care about! :^D


Unfortunately, I've been so busy with birthdays, crafts and parties that I have not had time to make any cookies or bread yet. It's probably for the best since there was brownies and there will soon be rainbow cupcakes. Hopefully I can make time to get photos of those posted. It's the "cheating" rainbow cupcakes and not the fancy sliced and layered ones. That idea came from Pinterest. Gotta love that site!

I just got word that I have to go Ft. Wayne on Tues. morning so that I can be involved in my sister's consultation to have plastic surgery for a tummy tuck. My older sister has Down's and at one point (much to my disapproval-but "they" didn't care) she was set out for independent living. Needless to say, she gained 100 pounds in 3 months!! Since then, she has been in 24 hour staff supervision and lost quite a bit of that weight. Unfortunately, she has this awful low hanging girth that never seems to heal. It's gross and painful for her. Her staff manager finally got the Dr. to approve the procedure simply because it was finally mentioned that I was concerned and looking into options. Gee, if we only knew that's all it took. I'm not sure why it was never mentioned before, but things are never quickly to resolve where I'm concerned anyway. So now I get to make the 2 1/2 hour trek to Ft. Wayne that morning so I can finally see what can happen for my sister. It will be painful and she will look so different, but hopefully she won't have to suffer with what she has been dealing with all these years. Ok, this post has been extremely long and I apologize. Thanks for bearing with me.

God Bless and have a great day.

Flea Marketing weekend!

YAY!!! I am finally going to get to go somewhere this weekend! I have been stressed about spending the money on the trip, but that's all working out OK, so far. The weather is going to be perfect too. Cool and sunny. I still need to pack just a few things yet, but mostly done. Then it's time to run a few errands while the hubby is hooking up the camper to the truck. It's kind of a long way to go for just the weekend, but I'm hoping we'll enjoy ourselves. I try to prepare the best I can, but it never seems to fail that I/we forget something. Usually nothing that's super important, like clothes or toilet paper, but something to make the trip a little bit better, like marshmallows or something, but that's all packed and since we're not planning on spending much time at the camper, most of the meals will be on the go. We only plan to cook brats over the fire on Sat. nite, with a side of chips and cheese and smores for dessert! YUM! Speaking of smores, have you seen the price of a 6 pack of Hershey bars?!?!? Lord, have mercy! We only had one left in the fridge so I wanted to get some more, but the pkg is almost $4 at Walmart. Well, I don't need 6 more candy bars, so I just bought 2 more single ones and called it good enough. I also picked up a dozen fresh bakery donuts for our breakfasts on Sat/Sun so we can get an early start on the days. I haven't had donuts in quite some time. These will be a treat with a cup of coffee. Oooooh yea.

My dishes are done, the laundry is all done & put away, which makes me feel better that I won't have a messy house to come back to with dirty dishes and laundry to get done before Monday. I hate that, but when my daughter was littler, that was pretty common. I'm glad I'm out of that stage.

My son is coming home this weekend because his college has Fall Break at the beginning of next week and his 19th birthday is Monday. He's happy that he doesn't have classes on his birthday! I don't know when he plans on showing up here, but he said it would be before we get back from camping, which makes me feel better that someone will be here at least part of the time that we're gone. Our neighbors do a good job of watching our place and they have our cell numbers handy. Which was good last year when the hubby caught our woods on fire. He left home to come help me tear down from my craft show that I was at that day. He thought he got the leaf fire put out before he left. However, the neighbor seen smoke and came over to see what my hubby was up to and discovered that no one was home. YIKES! It was a good thing that he came over. My husband just got to the craft show when he got the call & flew back home immediately. Good thing too, because the fire wasn't very far from the north corner of our house! He said "Note to self - that this year, he's not burning leaves on the day of my craft shows - at all."

Well, we're going down to southern/central Indiana to the Covered Bridge Festival. It's a county wide festival that's full of markets and flea markets and all kinds of yard sales & garage sales. We stopped at a garage sale at an Amish farm and they had THE BEST Persimmon cookies I have ever had! OMG!! I wished I would have tasted one before we left there, because I would have asked for the recipe and PAID her for it, if I could have. They're made from the wild Persimmons that grown down there and they are delicious! I have looked online for recipes and tried a few, because yes I did, I bought some persimmon pulp at a couple of places before I left. The recipes I made were good, but not like the ones I bought. I hope we can remember where that place was at and that they're having a sale again. My hubby and I have a dispute in which direction this place was at, so maybe we'll see who is right. maybe. I thought it was on the way to Mansfield, but hubby thought it was on the way to SteamCorner. I really don't care which way it was as long as I can get more cookies or better yet, the recipe! Maybe she even has some canned persimmon pulp too! That could be the secret too.... dreaming.....drooling.....OK! Snap out of it!

So with that, I better get this posted so I can wrap things up.

God Bless and have a great weekend!

Faux Grain sack pillow

 I have made a little decorative pillow. Nope, it's not a big deal... if you can sew a straight line in the shape of a square, you're pretty much good to go. But, this pillow is kind of unique in 2 ways. First, after my mother-in-law passed away, my husband and I had the task of going through all her things & deciding what to do with all of it. I came across a small booklet with just a few pillow designs. I'm pretty sure I still have the book, but I just don't know where. I only kept it because there was one pillow design in it that I really liked and that design is pretty popular right now. The second reason I wanted to make this pillow is that I have seen so many awesome looking pillows out in blogland that have been made from old grain sacks, or at least made to look like they were made from one. I mean, let's face it, they're not all that easy to find now and when you do, they're kind of steep to buy one or they're just not in great shape.

So, after I had some fabric left over from making my witches hats, I realized I had enough to make a smaller one of these pillows. YES!! I got my image transferred on the fabric first, then I managed to hit Joanne's when they were having their pillow forms 50% off. I was tempted to buy more than one, but I sure didn't need extras of these laying around if this didn't turn out as hoped planned, so I just got the one. I found some wooden buttons at Walmart that were big & chunky, exactly what I had in mind. So far, so good. This stuff has sat around waiting for me to finally pick it up and just DO something with it. That day was today. After getting a little frustrated with how the snowman hat didn't turn out as good as the witch hats did, I wasn't feeling the love with the ol' sewing machine - if ya know what I mean... (*sigh!*)

I'm not sure just what made me grab the stuff for the pillow, but I did and the design was just kind of coming together in an unconventional manner. I didn't have a pattern, I didn't have instructions I just had a vague idea of how to do it. I mean, it's not rocket science, for crying out loud. It's. just. a. pillow. They've been making them for AGES. So I learned a few things for the next time I might get the urge to make some more of these, and I really should, providing anyone wants this one at my craft show next month. In fact, I have some older pillows that my MIL made that have seen better days. I could just save the foam inside and make my own.

Anyway.


Here is the front side of the pillow. The image came from Graphics Fairy blog. She has tons of vintage images that are free for use. It's awesome!

This is the backside, the design I had wanted to try because of that little booklet my MIL had.

I like this style because it's easy to insert & remove the pillow form if you want to change out the cover. And don't you just love those big chunky wood buttons? I think I want to get some more to have on hand. I also like that you can have it turned with the buttons going from side to side, like I have here, or up and down. I like doing something with the back of the pillow that is just as interesting as the front, in case you want to change your look without buying new pillows. It makes them a bit more versatile.

I don't know if I'll get to post anymore this week or much next week either. We are going camping this weekend and my son is coming home early next week for his fall break from college. It's also his birthday on Monday and my daughter's birthday is the next weekend and she wants a sleep over party. I am going to try to make myself really nuts by attempting to make one of those rainbow cakes. You can call me crazy or stupid (or both) I'm sure I've been called both without knowing it. ;^) I hate working under pressure, but I swear that's when my best creativity comes to me. LOL! I know I'm not alone in that process either.  :^D

So that's it from me for now.

I am linking up to Rustic Crafts Shabby shares Sat., Someday Crafts Whatever Goes Wed.


God Bless and have a great day!

Fall is Halloween Time and MORE Witches Hats

Sorry....I know, I already did a post on the witches hats I made, but I didn't have them done in all the colors nor did I care for how the picture turned out. One of my friends said that maybe the pictures didn't do them justice.... Which to me, that makes it sound like she wasn't impressed with them. So I thought maybe, just maybe, and most likely, the picture didn't do them justice. Perhaps these won't either, but I think they look better than the other shot I took of the 2 together. At least now I have my fall mantel done to help out a little more.

This is the green trimmed one, which looks a little washed out and more yellow looking in this photo.

This is the mustard trimmed one that seems to go really well with my mantel decor and the butter yellow shutters.

Here is the orange trimmed one. This is the first one I made and the brim is a bit smaller than the others because I made that larger after this one.

And here is the purple trimmed one. I was kinda worried about how the color would turn out for the trim around the hat, but I actually nailed it with what I had in my mind. That's not something that happens very often in my world.

 Here is my mantel decorated up for the fall season (without the witches hats). I will be adding some Halloween stuff later this week or next. Too many other things in my schedule to be worrying about that right now. We didn't have a mantel in this room when we first moved here. My hubby started making one the first winter he was laid off, but didn't finish it until this last winter when he lost his job. The only thing we had to buy was the trim pieces, so it was basically a $25 mantel. Since my hubby is hoarder like myself, he had all the wood he needed from scrap pieces that were being thrown away at job sites he worked at. Frugal is so good! Now I'm still debating about whether I want add a medallion of some sort to the front or just leave it blank so I can change out vinyl words or sayings. I'm leaning towards the latter, but then again I hate to waste vinyl that I'm going to throw away. I could make custom sized signs to hang there and then switch them out when needed. We'll see.

Well hey! Thanks for stopping by today and I'd love for you to leave me some comments. You don't have to tell me you love me, or my stuff (unless you do love my stuff), just let me know you stopped in! tee hee... ;^)

God Bless and have a great day!

Linking up to Up to the October Halloween party over at While He was Napping blog.


Other parties I'm linking to: